On Deposing the King

I have had a bit of a stressful, busy week. I’m also not as far in Dragon Age: Inquisition as I’d like, either; every time I make progress, a dozen other quests pop up. 

Still! This weekend should be fun! I apologize if this goes up late and/or rushed, though.

This Note came about after reading Feet of Clay, some Codex Alera, and Hellboy: Wild Hunt.

Deposing the King

In fantasy, kings (and queens!) tend to fall into one of two categories: good, just rulers and evil bastard tyrants. This puts heroes and villains into easy assortments, as heroes are either loyal supporters or noble rebels, and villains are either stooges of the dictator or nasty schemers. And this can be fine if it’s done well. There’s a reason the classics are classic. I do like it, though, when authors decide to play with the idea of monarchy’s place. 

Essentially, is there a way to make overthrowing (or trying to overthrow) the monarch a sympathetic motivation?

Maybe it’s being American, or maybe something else, that makes me the notion of kings and queens less appealing to me. That is not to say I will always side against a monarch with fiction, but that I don’t always view him or her as a good part of the system by virtue of being monarch. What makes a good king/queen? And when is it better to replace a monarch than to keep the present one? And note that just because a ruler is a bad person, that doesn’t mean that person is a bad national leader.

[Heck, I heard that rhetoric on both sides in the last three elections: yeah, this person’s clearly a power-hungry jerk, but at least they’ll do the right/better thing with that power! Needless to say, I didn’t find this encouraging.]

One thing I did like in an early episode of BBC’s Merlin, is there’s a situation where Merlin learns that Morganna is going to try to kill King Uther. He’s torn on whether to let it happen or not, because Uther oppresses the magical people of Camelot. When he talks to Gaius about the idea of letting someone kill Uther, Gaius points out that Uther isn’t actually a bad king, he keeps the kingdom safe, after all.

Admittedly, as the series goes on, this defense gets flimsier and flimsier; most of the threats the kingdom faces are because of magical peoples upset at Uther for trying to murder their entire kind, and Uther’s approach to any threat is to circle the wagons around the nobility and forget the common people he’s supposed to be defending. And in today’s world, the defense of, “Well, he oppresses a minority, but other than that, he’s mostly okay!” is, uh… very weak.

Jim Butcher’s Codex Alera does a better job with this (Jim Butcher clearly loves messing around with this idea–look at Cold Days in Dresden Files). In the first book, it seems a pretty straightforward idea that the good guys are loyal to the First Lord, and the villains rebel against him. As the series goes on, though, it’s clear that many of the ones we considered villains have legitimate reasons for thinking that this current dynasty is about to end (the First Lord has no heirs), and that he hasn’t been doing a great job of running Alera. It helps that there are also other villains who want power for its own sake, and an even greater threat outside all of that for everyone to stand against, raising the question of–would the “usurper villains” actually stand a better chance against that threat than the current power structure? Would it actually be better for them to run the country? The story also plays with this as many of the heroes have legitimate beef with the First Lord, some even outright hating him, even as they fight to stop someone else from taking his spot on the throne.

It’s frustrating when these power plays are written but not actually considered; Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla has a lot of playing with kings and crowns changing heads, but the reasons for a king being sympathetic or not boils down to, “Is this person sympathetic to the Norse/Danes?” We’re meant to be happy with the Kingdom of Mercia being put under a puppet king because, well, he doesn’t have a problem with the Great Heathen Army pillaging his people and holy sites.

 The exception is the Lincolnshire arc. And I suppose the defense is that the story is from the point of view of a Norse person, so she or he wouldn’t bring up those issues, though the story clearly doesn’t consider that, and none of the modern-day characters have problems with this, either. The English king of Mercia is a bad man because he’s intolerant… of people who are an active threat to him and his people.

I’m sorry, but that game’s notion of, “Vikings = immigrants” thing still bothers me. They’re not immigrants, they’re colonizers.

Moving on!

Men at Arms has an entire Plot that involves the Guild leaders thinking they can install a king when Vetinari’s sick. And of course, they realize that the actual heir is too heroic, they want a puppet king. And their view is framed as entirely unsympathetic, because yeah, we don’t like the idea of a king who exists to just be a puppet to the interest of a few, rather than a leader who cares about the people, or, like Vetinari, who cares about running an efficient system. That book really examines the idea of, “Is a king good?” and “What kind of king would you want, anyway?”

Trying to install or depose a king (or queen!) is a fascinating notion, and fantasy often deals with kingdoms, so of course it comes up. I just really like when people say, “Wait, hey, is this actually a good idea?” or, “Do the villains actually have a point in trying to depose the king?” A crown is no guarantee that the one wearing it is a good fit for the position, no more than any other leader is good because he or she has that job.

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